Posted By Dan Greenfield on Feb 18, 2024 | 8 comments

BRONZE AGE BONANZA: Sutton! Adams! Kane! Wrightson! MORE!

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Welcome to BRONZE AGE BONANZA — our monthly series that looks at the greatest covers of the Bronze Age — exactly 50 years later. For more info on this feature, click here.

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Tom Sutton gets three spots! Gil Kane and Luis Dominguez make strong showings! Plus more classics by Wrightson and Adams!

Dig the TOP 13 COVERS OF FEBRUARY 1974 — RANKED:

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13. Ghost Manor #18, Charlton. What am I missing here? Ethereal Strawberry Shortcake wants the nice young couple to live in a land of rainbow crystals? OK. But, hey, I give Tom Sutton — his first of three covers this month — credit for throwing it out there in a horror mag.

Tom Sutton

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12. Adam-12 #3, Gold Key. I like this. I have no idea what it’s trying to say, but I like it. A couple of stock images of Reed and Malloy flanking some groovy Jack Sparling illos. Strange but colorful. Generally speaking, Gold Key went with photo covers or illustration covers but not both. Perhaps it all ties together inside — Sparling did the interiors too — but I have no idea.

Jack Sparling

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11. Scream #5, Skywald. “Hey, um, Fernando, I love the shrieking, green zombie, but it’s missing something in the upper right, y’know? How about, how about — I GOT IT! Add a random, half-naked chick up there and we’re golden!”

Fernando Fernandez

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10. Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica #220, Archie. God, the fashions. Love ’em. Especially the contrast between B and V. And can we all take a moment to appreciate the gifted linework of Dan DeCarlo? Folks, it looks so simplistic, but that is hard.

Dan DeCarlo pencils. Inker unidentified.

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9. Batman #256, DC. As you’ll see as the year goes on, 1974 was the year of the DC 100-pager. The key was how best to use the space allotted and Nick Cardy turns in a great one: Big, dynamic horizontal image up top that dominates, with three first-rate vignettes below. Purple background set off against a lot of orange and — POW — we have a winner! And hey, a Pirate Catwoman sighting! Her last, I do believe. (I still think it’s too bad Mego had the misfortunate of designing its Catwoman figure while DC was using this costume. Oh, well.)

Nick Cardy

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8. House of Secrets #119, DC. Asshole gets exactly what’s coming to him.

Luis Dominguez

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7. Weird War Tales #25, DC. Asshole gets what’s coming to him, Part 2. I actually laughed out loud at this one. I love the vaguely smug look on the artist’s face, as if all this carnage just makes for a good picture. Man, Luis Dominguez, you rocked.

Dominguez

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6. Marvel Premiere #15, Marvel. The first appearance of Iron Fist! It’s a classic cover because it’s his debut, but Gil Kane (inked by Dick Giordano!) was usually capable of showing a lot more power in his illustrations. So, it definitely deserves to be here but I can’t really put it higher. Maybe you disagree.

Gil Kane pencils, Dick Giordano inks

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5. The Many of Ghosts of Doctor Graves #45, Charlton. Now, this is downright terrifying, Tom Sutton. Let that id go wild! Anyway, stop for a second and think about this: What you can see is absolutely horrifying — but the dude at the bottom is more freaked out by what we can’t see. We can only see the silhouette. Imagine how bad THAT is. Horror Comics 101, folks. But Sutton brings it.

Sutton

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4. Ghostly Haunts #38, Charlton. Flip 4 and 5 if you want. I’m fine with that. Sutton is the beneficiary either way.

Sutton

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3. Giant-Size Super-Heroes #1, Marvel. Holy shit, Morbius and Man-Wolf are thisclose to shredding Spidey to pieces. In mid-air! Terrific, close-quarters combat by Kane. Love the angle from above. Great, tight, work.

Kane pencils, John Romita inks

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2. Swamp Thing #10, DC. Yet another tremendous Swamp Thing classic by Wrightson. It’s weirdly irreverent too: You’re so focused on Swampy and that giant Un-Man that you don’t even bother to notice the spectacularly disgusting Un-Man on the bottom left — the one with the head for a torso. Cripes!

Bernie Wrightson

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1. The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #1, Marvel. Neal Adams has topped the annual BRONZE AGE BONANZA list every year in the feature’s first four years. Here’s what I wrote in December: “I expect that streak will be snapped in 1974.” I might have been wrong. He’s already got the first two months.

Neal Adams

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MORE

— The TOP 13 COVERS of JANUARY 1974 — RANKED. Click here.

— BRONZE AGE BONANZA: The 1974 INDEX. Click here.

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Comics sources: Mike’s Amazing World of Comics and the Grand Comics Database.